Tag: model projections

No, Earth.com, Climate Change Isn’t Causing Dangerous Fungus Outbreaks

In the Earth.com article “Deadly fungus that will ‘eat you from the inside out’ is quickly spreading around the world,” Eric Ralls presents a dramatic warning that Aspergillus fungi are expanding their range due to climate change and threatening millions of people. This is false. The story’s most alarming claims are not based on observed fungal spread, but on model projections under a carbon dioxide high-emissions scenario. The article’s tone suggests ongoing, measurable expansion, but the underlying study only models hypothetical future distributions.

From The Climate Realism

By Anthony Watts

In the Earth.com article “Deadly fungus that will ‘eat you from the inside out’ is quickly spreading around the world,” Eric Ralls presents a dramatic warning that Aspergillus fungi are expanding their range due to climate change and threatening millions of people. This is false. The story’s most alarming claims are not based on observed fungal spread, but on model projections under a carbon dioxide high-emissions scenario. The article’s tone suggests ongoing, measurable expansion, but the underlying study only models hypothetical future distributions.

The headline claims a “Deadly fungus that will ‘eat you from the inside out’ is quickly spreading around the world.” That false and inflammatory phrase appears in the title — not in the scientific content itself. Nowhere in the body of the article does the phrase “eat you from the inside out” appear in a clinical or epidemiological context. This suggests it is clickbait framing layered onto a modeling paper.

The central numbers driving the alarm come from a carbon dioxide high-emissions scenario, specifically a derivative of RCP 8.5, an assemblage of computer model outputs that most scientists have abandoned as being highly unrealistic or unlikely. The National Center for Atmospheric Research says that RCP 8.5 is “not considered a likely scenario,” and Climate Realism has repeatedly debunked its continued use, here, here, and here, for example, pointing out that it is more than just unlikely but rather that based on the carbon stored on land and in oceans, it is probably impossible.

Still, the authors of the study used the problematic high-emissions scenario to project that the range of A. flavus in Europe could expand by about 16 percent. Under this projection, an additional one million people across Europe could possibly be placed at risk of fungal infection. That is not an observation of current spread. It is a conditional projection based on modeled climate inputs.

There is no presentation of observational data showing that Aspergillus infections have increased over the past 40-plus years of documented global warming. No infection-rate time series is shown. No continental trend data are cited. No public health surveillance datasets are presented demonstrating a statistically significant upward trajectory correlated with temperature.

This distinction matters.

Species distribution modeling, often using tools such as MaxENT, estimates habitat suitability under assumed climate inputs. It does not demonstrate present-day expansion. It produces scenario-based suitability maps. Modeling hypothetical future habitat changes is not the same as documenting real-world spread.

If warming temperatures over the past 40 years were already driving dangerous fungal expansion, we would expect to see documented increases in infection incidence correlated with temperature over decades. Instead, risk factors for aspergillosis are overwhelmingly clinical and environmental. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) explains on its Aspergillosis Overview page that infection primarily affects individuals with weakened immune systems and is commonly associated with hospital construction dust exposure, organ transplantation, and severe immunosuppression. Climate change is not identified as a primary driver of current case incidence.

The Earth.com article also highlights antifungal resistance. Yet azole resistance in Aspergillus fumigatus has been strongly linked to agricultural fungicide use, as summarized by the CDC in its page on Azole-Resistant Aspergillosis. That is a pharmaceutical and agricultural stewardship issue, not evidence of climate-driven geographic spread.

The article references Candida auris as an example of climate-linked emergence. The hypothesis suggesting a warming connection was published in mBio by the American Society for Microbiology in “On the Emergence of Candida auris.” That paper proposed thermal adaptation as a possibility. But, most importantly, it did not establish causation. Hypothesis is not proof.

Even the Earth.com piece concedes that fungi remain “relatively under-researched compared to viruses and parasites.” That admission undercuts the certainty implied by the headline. If surveillance gaps exist, projections should be framed cautiously — not amplified into declarations of rapid global spread.

There is no quantified demonstration in the article that infection incidence per capita has increased in Europe in step with observed warming of roughly 1°C since the late-twentieth century. If warming over the past four decades were already driving continental fungal spread, robust surveillance data would demonstrate it. It doesn’t. Invasive aspergillosis case numbers are influenced by chemotherapy prevalence, organ transplantation rates, improved diagnostics, hospital practices, and antifungal resistance — all confounding variables absent from the Earth.com narrative.

None of this minimizes the seriousness of fungal infections in vulnerable populations. Aspergillus can be life-threatening for immunocompromised patients. Antifungal resistance is a legitimate concern. The Earth.com headline declares a deadly fungus is “quickly spreading around the world.” By contrast, the research it references says nothing about any ongoing expansion of the disease. Earth.com’s conflating modeled habitat suitability under extreme emissions scenarios with present-day spread has resulted in an inaccurate, unjustifiably alarming story.

Presenting overhyped projections about future infections as if it represented an ongoing global fungal expansion is lying, not reporting and certainly not trustworthy journalism. Earth.com should be ashamed of framing this non-issue as a clickbait story designed to scare people.

Time to Defund Climate Models?

“The Trump administration is cutting funding for climate research across all federal departments…. Maybe it’s time for NASA to stick to space exploration, NOAA to stick to weather forecasting, and for the climate models to be shut down.”

From Master Resource

By Steve Goreham

“The Trump administration is cutting funding for climate research across all federal departments…. Maybe it’s time for NASA to stick to space exploration, NOAA to stick to weather forecasting, and for the climate models to be shut down.”

Climate models have been the basis for concern about climate change for more than 35 years. The US government, the United Nations, and organizations across the world have used model projections to warn about global warming and to demand a shift to renewable energy. But Trump administration budget cuts at NASA, NOAA, and other federal agencies threaten to shut down the models, the heart of climate change alarmism.

In June of 1988, Senator Tim Wirth, then chair of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, held the first-ever hearing on the science of climate change. Dr. James Hansen, head of a computer-modeling team at NASA, testified that he was “ … 99 percent confident that the world really was getting warmer and that there was a high degree of probability that it was due to human-made greenhouse gases.”

Since Dr. Syukuro Manabe of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Washington D.C. developed one of the first climate models in the 1960s, modelers have been warning that humans are causing dangerous climate change. Global surface temperatures have risen only a little more than one degree Celsius over the last 140 years, but models project a faster additional rise of 0.5ꟷ3.5oC by the year 2100.

Climate models have been used by scientists, researchers, and governmental policy makers to estimate possible future climate impacts. Global organizations, such as The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of the United Nations and the World Bank use model projections to urge climate action. Non-governmental organizations such as Greenpeace use model projections to raise funds. But the Trump administration appears to be about to shut down the US climate models.

There are more than 40 climate models operating across the world, with 13 of the leading models located in the US. The US models are operated by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in New York City, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Princeton, New Jersey, and the Department of Energy (DOE) in Boulder, Colorado. Each of these organizations has been ordered to reduce staff as part of Trump administration budget cuts.

The White House may soon tell NASA to focus work on space programs, not climate change. In February, the administration denied NASA officials permission to travel to an international climate meeting in China. At the same time, NASA management cut off funding for a support contract for the 7th Assessment Report of the IPCC. NASA has been a primary contributor to previous IPCC Assessment Reports. Preliminary government spending plans for fiscal year 2026 would cut NASA’s science budget by almost half, to $3.9 billion.

The administration also wants to end climate change programs at NOAA. Plans call for a 27% cut to NOAA’s budget, down to $4.5 billion. Final budget totals for NASA and NOAA will need to be approved by Congress, with members concerned about the climate sure to put up a fight.

Climate models run on supercomputers and are expensive. Supercomputers cost about $50 million up front and $20 million per year to support each climate-modeling team. The NASA, NOAA, and DOE modeling teams may not be able to survive large projected cuts.

Beyond climate models, budgets of other climate projects will also be cut. The Sea Level Research Group at the University of Colorado has been studying sea level rise for about two decades. This group gets much of its funding from NASA and other federal agencies. The Mauna Loa Laboratory in Hawaii has been measuring the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration since the 1950s, but it may be closed due to NOAA funding cuts. Three NASA satellites used to collect climate data also need to be replaced, but there are no plans to do so.

The Trump administration is cutting funding for climate research across all federal departments, with major impacts on US and world efforts to force action on climate change. Maybe it’s time for NASA to stick to space exploration, NOAA to stick to weather forecasting, and for the climate models to be shut down.

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Steve Goreham is a speaker on energy, the environment, and public policy and author of Green Breakdown: The Coming Renewable Energy Failure. His previous posts at MasterResource are here.

Sorry, CBS News Philly, Landfalling Hurricanes Are Not Increasing

A CBS News Philidelphia segment on hurricanes claims that climate change will cause increase in hurricanes making landfall on the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf Coasts. This claim is unsubstantiated and undermined by the available evidence. Rather than citing data or the science provided by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, CBS anchor David Schechter cites model projections for his claims. The past few decades of warming have yielded no increase in hurricane landfalls, quite the opposite.

From ClimateRealism

By Linnea Lueken

A CBS News Philidelphia segment on hurricanes claims that climate change will cause increase in hurricanes making landfall on the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf Coasts. This claim is unsubstantiated and undermined by the available evidence. Rather than citing data or the science provided by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, CBS anchor David Schechter cites model projections for his claims. The past few decades of warming have yielded no increase in hurricane landfalls, quite the opposite.

Aside from claiming climate change will make landfalling hurricanes more frequent on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, Schechter also claims that scientists are “certain” that hurricanes are getting stronger.

Warming ocean temperatures are pointed to as the main cause of alleged stronger hurricanes, but sea temperatures are only one factor in driving hurricane formation and strength. Another major factor is wind shear. Many hurricane researchers predict that global warming will likely increase wind shear, which will inhibit the formation of hurricanes and cause them to dissipate or become disorganized faster, despite an increase in water temperature.

Despite a slow warming over the past few decades, data refutes assertions that hurricanes have become stronger than they were in the past. In fact, evidence suggests the opposite is true. One measure of tropical cyclone strength, Accumulated Cyclone Energy, shows no increase over time in the Northern Hemisphere, or the globe at large over the past decades of modest warming. (See Figure below)

Figure 1 From Dr. Ryan Maue, at https://climatlas.com/tropical/

Regarding hurricane landfall numbers, the claim that they will increase in the future is similarly speculative. Schechter interviewed Dr. Kristen Corbosiero, a professor at the State University of New York in Albany, who acknowledged that data does not point to an increase in the number of future hurricanes. Yet, he and Schechter then pointed to a single study published in Science Advances which projects possible hurricane increases based on climate model projections. However, as Climate Realism has previously explained, here, here, and here, for instance, climate models seriously flawed, producing projections that have consistently failed to materialize in the real world.

Indeed, real world data on hurricane landfalls show that they have been much less frequent in recent decades than in the past. Climate at a Glance: Hurricanes explains that the U.S. “went more than a decade (2005 through 2017) without a major hurricane—a hurricane measuring Category 3 or higher—making landfall. That is the longest such period in recorded history.” Florida itself went 11 years without a single landfalling hurricane of any size until 2016.

Again, available data plotting major U.S. hurricane landfalls show no increasing trend. (See figure below)

Figure 2: Number of continental United States landfalling hurricanes 1900–2019. Left, all hurricanes, right, major hurricanes (category 3 and above), with (insignificant) regression lines, (Klotzbach et al., 2018), with 2018–20 updated from personal communication by Anthony Watts with lead authors.

And the data suggests that the number of major hurricanes has modestly decreased globally, in recent decades. (See figure 3 below)

Figure 3 From Dr. Ryan Maue, at https://climatlas.com/tropical/

Climate Realism has debunked the false claims on hurricanes dozens of times, but it is worth pointing out once again that even the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says there is only “low” confidence that any changes in tropical cyclone activity can be attributed to human influence, and admits that it has detected no trend of increasing hurricane numbers or intensity.

Neither the unalarming available data, nor the IPCC’s findings, prevent the media from using one of the most destructive natural events in the world—tropical cyclones—to stoke alarm about the future under modest warming. Coastal cities, like Philadelphia, are wise to prepare for hurricanes. However, despite Philly’s CBS News unsubstantiated claims, they need not fear such terrible weather events now any more than they have in the past.

Linnea Lueken

Linnea Lueken is a Research Fellow with the Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy.

While she was an intern with The Heartland Institute in 2018, she co-authored a Heartland Institute Policy Brief “Debunking Four Persistent Myths About Hydraulic Fracturing.”

Linnea Lueken